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cadam
Joined: 11 Nov 2004
Location: Jeonju, South Korea
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 Posted: Thu Jun 23, 2005 9:06 am Post subject: Geoje College - Tips and Warnings |
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I have something I would like to add to recent discussion about the island of Geoje.
Next week Goeje College will go looking for a new foreign instructor. It is a sweet gig - 20 hours teaching, 16 weeks vacation, a car, a striking coastline. The Professor in charge of foreign teachers hates sorting through resumes so he will be going through a recruiter, Anne Kim at U.E.C. The other foreign teacher only has an undergraduate degree and some hagwon time in so they'll consider anyone who isn't a stark newbie. I suspect the real key to getting the job is to have a Korean wife or girlfriend. It was my girlfriend (now ex-girlfriend) who did most of the talking that culminated in an offer from Geoje college. If you are a male, you may want to consider enlisting a Korean female friend to play the part. It will take you places I bet.
Now the bad news. That position is cursed! Cursed I tell you! I was the third teacher in a row who didn't complete their contract. One guy was psychotic, one guy was a drug dealer and me? When we broke up, that girlfriend of mine (remember, the one who helped me land the job) wrote a slanderous post about me on the college webpage and the President of the college asked me to resign. Just like that. She also reported my one and only private lesson to the Provincial Police headquarters. Officials showed up and harrassed everyone in the household. This lesson was arranged by a Korean Geoje College professor for a member of his extended family. My chances of winning the support of the Labor Board seem unlikely because of this so I'm packing it in and living to fight another day. It was a devastating series of events.
It was too good to be true anyway. 16 weeks vacation?! Who gets 16 weeks vacation? I mean for the love of God. I warn you, it is like Deliverance out here on Geoje. How anyone survives the distinctively awful and unusually expensive Korean food is beyond me.
I had heard stories about what poor students Korean college kids are but I was entirely unprepared for the antics at the college. I had a class of ten students for basic conversation that didn't come to class for three weeks - straight! This was not a case of a single student being absent for nine consecutive meetings. The whole class went missing - for three weeks! I kid you not.
Good people of the cafe: fight the urge to make a run for this job. If you can't resist though and I certainly couldn't fault someone for taking a job with 16 weeks off, at least be aware that there is dark cloud hanging over the foreign teachers here on the isle of loving kindness. |
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rumpolestitskin
Joined: 12 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Thu Jun 23, 2005 3:15 pm Post subject: Re: Geoje College - Tips and Warnings |
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| cadam wrote: |
| When we broke up, that girlfriend of mine (remember, the one who helped me land the job) wrote a slanderous post about me on the college webpage and the President of the college asked me to resign. |
I hope you got some revenge on this ex girl freind of yours. Thats low, plus immigration as well. |
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VanIslander
Joined: 18 Aug 2003
Location: Geoje, Hadong, Tongyeong,... now in a small coastal island town outside Gyeongsangnamdo!
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| Posted: Thu Jun 23, 2005 4:47 pm Post subject: Re: Geoje College - Tips and Warnings |
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| cadam wrote: |
| That position is cursed! Cursed I tell you! I was the third teacher in a row who didn't complete their contract. One guy was psychotic, one guy was a drug dealer... |
That explains it. I've actually heard some things second hand from my adult students who voluntarily pay extra to take English night classes with me at a hagwon in addition to the education they are supposed to be geting at Geoje College.
| Quote: |
| ... and me... When we broke up, that girlfriend of mine (remember, the one who helped me land the job) wrote a slanderous post about me on the college webpage and the President of the college asked me to resign. Just like that. She also reported my one and only private lesson to the Provincial Police headquarters. |
Too bad things went south on you cadam, but you had a big role to play in facilitating how it went down.
The moral is twofold:
One, don't get a Korean girlfriend involved in work negotiations if you plan on dumping her at any point while you are in Korea because you give her power over you, which she used.
Two, don't do privates of any kind unless you do the paperwork to make it legit. I've been asked over a hundred times to do privates and have alwayys turned it down, though make it perfectly clear that if they wanted to go on a tourist trip to someplace I want to go I'd probably be glad to go along and speak English, the only language I know well. 
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| ...My chances of winning the support of the Labor Board seem unlikely because of this so I'm packing it in and living to fight another day. |
In other words, you're running; makes sense since they want you to resign anyways!
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| I warn you, it is like Deliverance out here on Geoje. How anyone survives the distinctively awful and unusually expensive Korean food is beyond me. |
These comments are absurd. I have been here for a few years and have NO idea what you are talking about.
It's very difficult to have a full dinner and drinks, with extra side dishes if you are really hungry, and pay more than 15,000 or 20,000 won for two people. I eat in local restaurants four or five nights a week, and have been to over a hundred of them, and I am constantly surprised at how cheap eating out is here compared to Canada, where back home $50-100 was needed to be budgeted for every dinner date for two. I admit the Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, French, Italian, Pakistani and German restaurants here are relatively expensive, but nothing close to Korean (except bosintang, which was 55,000 won for the extra heaping bowl my director ordered for me and ended up paying for).
And Deliverance? It sounds like you were the only one giving it, literally, to a local, and she turned on you afterwards. Geoje island is not hickville compared to many other areas. Nobody points at me here, probably because there are a lot of foreigners on the island and the island's riches comes from the two shipyards which build ships primarily for foreigners.
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| I had heard stories about what poor students Korean college kids are but I was entirely unprepared for the antics at the college. I had a class of ten students for basic conversation that didn't come to class for three weeks - straight! This was not a case of a single student being absent for nine consecutive meetings. The whole class went missing - for three weeks! I kid you not. |
Hmmm,... I have Geoje College students taking night courses at my hagwon. Yeah they miss every third or fourth class, even though they are paying for it, but they seem very busy and have gone on a few trips this year.
That said, one of the reasons I prefer elementary school age kids at a hagwon is that I get to see real progress in their language development. College and university students, especially in certain disciplines, in this country are notorious for their lackadaisical attitude. And what'd you expect at a lowly community college on a South Korean island?
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| ...there is dark cloud hanging over the foreign teachers here on the isle of loving kindness. |
At Geoje College, perhaps.
Maybe the next teacher will be their ray of sunshine.
By the way, you have to admit cadam, the campus has a spectacular view, is gorgeously located at the top of a small peninsula with cliffs and beaches below, and a view of the surrounding hills aand ocean, even Japanese islands in the distance. Hope you at least played some tennis on campus. It's the best place on the island to do so. |
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steroidmaximus
Joined: 27 Jan 2003
Location: GangWon-Do
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| Posted: Sun Jun 26, 2005 4:54 pm Post subject: |
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| what's the director's email? pm me |
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inkoreaforgood
Joined: 15 Dec 2003
Location: Inchon
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| Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2005 1:37 am Post subject: |
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| Really, OP, sorry about your luck, but no real reason to downplay this job. Good luck in the future, sounds like you need it!! |
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